'Gaza is a direct result of Balfour': Palestinians petition UK for reparations over historic crimes

A group of Palestinians has served a legal petition to the UK demanding acknowledgement of British crimes in Palestine between 1918 and 1948. 

Drafted by two King’s Council (KC) lawyers, the 400-page legal document says it records “incontrovertible evidence” that Britain breached international law standards applicable at the time.

The petition presents seven requests to the UK government, including issuing a public apology in the House of Commons and investigating potential reparations for the Palestinian people.

Filed to the government on Sunday night, the document is addressed to British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, Defence Secretary John Healey and Attorney General Richard Hermer. 

As a formal request to the government based on detailed legal analysis, the government is legally obliged to respond to the petition or could face high court judicial review proceedings.

Britain has long faced criticism for its historic role in the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

In 1917, the British government issued the Balfour Declaration, vowing to create a “national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine - despite the overwhelming majority of the population being of non-Jewish origin. 

'The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was made in Britain'

- Professor Avi Shlaim, St Antony's College, Oxford

According to the declaration, "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine".

Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, Palestine was overseen by a British mandate from 1920 to 1948, during which time the petitioners say British conduct amounted to “war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

Leading Israeli historian of the conflict, Professor Emeritus Avi Shlaim, is a co-contributor to the document, along with the international law academics Professor Emeritus John Quigley and Dr Victor Kattan. 

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“The Israeli-Palestinian conflict was made in Britain,” Shlaim told Middle East Eye. 

“The tiny Zionist minority was enabled by Britain in 1917 to embark on the systematic takeover of Palestine, a process that continues to this day.”

Shlaim emphasised that historic British foreign policy - as well as ongoing support - holds significant responsibility for Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, in which at least 66,000 Palestinians have been killed since 7 October 2023. 

“The current war in Gaza is the direct result of the Balfour declaration,” Shlaim said.

“Britain has always supported Zionist settler colonialism - which has always been expansionist - and today that movement has reached its cruel climax, with Israel - Britain’s protege - perpetrating genocide in Gaza and the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank.”

'The entire British enterprise was unlawful'

The legal petition focuses both on particular abuses committed by Britain in Mandatory Palestine, and the illegality of Britain’s overarching occupation and partition plans.

“This petition represents the first time the British government has ever been called to account for being in Palestine unlawfully, where its tenure had no legal basis,” explained Quigley.

“It proclaimed itself under a League of Nations mandate system that required it to have territorial title - which it did not have,” Quigley elaborated.

“So really, the entire British enterprise was unlawful - not only the particular atrocities it committed."

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The group of 14 petitioners is led by 91-year-old Palestinian industrialist Munib al-Masri, who was shot in the leg by British soldiers aged 13.

A survivor of the Palestinian Nakba of 1948, in which Zionist militias killed around 13,000 Palestinians and displaced 750,000 others following the sudden withdrawal of British forces, Masri said that the events he witnessed during that period inspired his lifelong commitment to seeking justice.

“1948 was terrible. I saw thousands of refugees coming to Nablus [in Palestine] hungry, barefooted, tired and without clothes. It's been on my mind ever since,” he told Middle East Eye.

“Britain can only play its part in building a just peace in the region today if it acknowledges its defining role in the horrors of the past,” he added.

“An apology would be a just start to what Palestinians expect from the British government.”

Britain has previously acknowledged other colonial injustices, including apologising in March 2025 for the 1948 massacre of 24 unarmed men at Batang Kali, Malaya.

A previous petition demanding an official apology for British policy in Palestine was filed in 2017 to mark the centenary of the Balfour Declaration. 

The petition, which was signed by 13,600 people, was bluntly dismissed by then Prime Minister Theresa May's administration.  

“We are proud of our role in creating the state of Israel,” said the British government's response, issued weeks before May received Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an official state visit.